


Hated Day

by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: M/M, archive warning: a love realized too late, archive warning: charming dystopia, archive warning: philosophizing about grief, archive warning: redemption rebel, archive warning: the author might have gotten choked up, archive warning: the author requests happy prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetales/pseuds/Inaccessible%20Rail
Summary: Sometimes, there’s nothing left to do but give up and call it what it is: a tragedy. He was left living one half of this tragic, mutually agreed upon life while the other half, presumably, felt nothing at all.How dare you, he thought, bitterly,how dare you feel nothing at all.





	Hated Day

**Author's Note:**

> @eurydicewouldfollow is absolutely to blame for this. Also, his Kindle is $15, so if it breaks, I’ll pay for it. **WARNING for major character death and kind of heavy-handed allusions to the current US political calamity.** I’m serious folks, this is not a happy story. It’s dotted with hope, but ultimately I’m calling this a tragedy and leaving it at that. A note on the setting: I’ve imagined this to be something like the precursor to Gilead in Atwood’s _Handmaid’s Tale_ , so a kind of pre-dystopia. The title is taken from a quote by Virginia Woolf in _The Waves_ , “So each night I tear off the old day from the calendar, and screw it tight into a ball. I do this vindictively. […] I do not pray. I revenge myself upon the day. I wreak my spite upon its image. You are dead now, I say, […] hated day.” The bulk of this was written while listening to Max Richter’s album, _Sleep_ , which is available in its entirety on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRqzxSHiaSs).

If I could go back and  
rewrite our stories  
I think  
I would rip out  
all the pages where  
you become the  
h e r o.  
  
I know that  
you might hate me  
for robbing you  
of what could have been:  
   the glories  
   the adventures  
   the challenges  
   the legends—  
  
But at least  
you might still be here.  
At least  
we might still be happy.  
  
\-- j.p., “but I guess I was never much of a writer”

…

It happens the way that so many had warned it would—like a frog that’s been left in a pot of water on the stove. Initially, it might feel like nothing more than a light simmer, so you’d probably fail to notice much of a difference. Hell, you might even find the sudden warmth pleasant at first. The temperature rises so slowly you don’t even realize what’s happening, not until the flesh has already begun to blister, until you’re in too much pain to do anything other than close your eyes in exhausted, agonizing defeat.

From the very beginning, David Nolan had been suspicious of a political party predicated on the belief that sewing division was the path to control. That free will was an illusory privilege people had been brainwashed to want. “Not so,” the party chanted from their podiums, “there is far too much to fear.” One too many pipe bombs in coffee shops; too many dead, middle class high school kids with the “wrong kind” of drug in their system. The world was going to hell, they often reminded their fearful, desperate audience. The world is going to hell, and only we can fix it.

He signed petitions and shared articles on Facebook; canvassed for politicians and marched at rallies. Despite the fact that he was only a pre-veterinary student with little means, he knew that he was living in a moment that demanded his resistance, so he resisted. He couldn’t bear the sight of his friends looking so downtrodden, so obviously frightened by what they saw on the news everyday. And he knew that while he was probably the least likely to suffer beneath the yolk of this new regime, that didn’t mean he would allow others to do so. “Fight for what’s right,” and all that. And even then, it only ever seemed like a temporary thing. They couldn’t possibly have to do this forever, right? This was how the system worked—sometimes you got dealt a dirty hand, but it could always be fixed.

“You would think so,” says the frog, boiling in his pot, “but you’d be wrong.”

…

Killian Jones, on the other hand, never paid much attention to politics. He had spent too much of his childhood just trying to _survive_ , let alone allow himself to be worried by things he could do nothing to change. He understood the system well, but it was an understanding built upon an assurance of personal reward. If others couldn’t figure out how to work the system to their advantage, well, that was their own fault.

Every once in a while there’d be that niggling feeling at the heart of him, like maybe he could be better, _do_ better. But he would often shake his head, tossing the thought aside. Or he would simply take another pull from his flask, allowing the burn of it to bring his nagging conscious to heel. Killian was one of those people who had known that the frog was bound to die before it had even gotten itself into the pot in the first place. Not the smartest of creatures, frogs. Hopping along, minding their own business, not realizing that they’ve only _ever_ been prey.

Eventually, David would come to learn the root of this cynicism, and it would break his too-big-for-his-body heart into a dozen or so large, unruly pieces. Such a small boy Killian had been, when his father left him in the dark. Left for the larger monsters with only his brother for company, still too _just a boy_ —old enough to understand a sense of personal responsibility, but still too young to care for anyone other than himself. To be fair, he had “given it a fair shake,” in Killian’s words, but in the end it had been too hard, and he too would eventually vanish, fading into the world as if he’d never been.

Curiously, Killian still had a single photograph of Liam pressed in between the pages of his notebooks (of which there were _many_ ). Every time he would begin a new one the photo would once again make the journey from the old book to the new, more wrinkled and faded than it had been before.

_“I could never bring myself to get rid of it,” he confessed one evening, his eyes glazed over and words mildly slurred. “I tossed it onto the street once, but I couldn’t leave him.”_

_Killian had never looked so human in the ensuing silence, and David could picture it in his own head so_ ** _vividly_** _._ _A sad, lonely boy staring down at his brother’s face, so angry yet still compelled to keep him close, even though it_ ** _was_** _only a photograph. “And you think that’s somehow a bad thing?” Dave had finally asked, “to want to remember him?”_

Looking back, he knows it was a stupid question. It should have been obvious, but he hadn’t quite _arrived_ yet—at his understanding of who Killian was, of _why_ he was. Of what he might become.

…

They meet at a fundraiser that David had helped organize at a local college bar. The night begins on a fairly positive note. In tough times such as these, surrounding oneself with likeminded people, it feels like a saving grace. It feels like confirmation that you are not the “crazy one,” that you are not alone, and maybe, just maybe, if you fight hard enough—you can win.

Killian had spilled a beer all over their sign-in sheet, and David would forever wonder whether or not it had been on purpose. Killian would insist it was an accident, but David would never fully believe him. Especially given what he now knows, that Killian Jones was far too much of an insecure wreck to ever just walk up and introduce himself to someone he might fancy. Instead it was a “clumsy fall,” and a boisterous laugh, and a poking fun at their “useless efforts.”

_“Don’t you see we’re all fucked, mate?” he asked gleefully, standing aside and watching David rush to mop up the spilled liquid. “I know you’re trying to save the world and everything, but surely there are better things to do with one’s time.”_

_“You mean like get trashed and harass well meaning people in a bar?”_

In David’s admittedly fuzzy memory, it seemed as if Killian’s eyes had grown a shade or two darker at that comment, so brief it would have been easy enough to miss. But David, well meaning, defensive boy that he was, had shoved it aside, deciding instead to trade barbs with this sloppy, grinning, _maniac_ with far too much hair and dangerously high levels of charisma. At first glance, Killian seemed like he could’ve been one of them—one of the party supporters with their deeply cynical pretension; their outdated and dehumanizing ideologies currently infecting the human race on a global scale. That was, of course, until an _actual_ group of supporters had stumbled in, drunk and loud and looking for a fight.

David had even momentarily forgotten all about him in his haste to crowd his friends out of the bar. At least until he felt a hard shove at his back, and suddenly found himself lying facedown on the sticky wooden floor. Stunned, he turned to face his attacker, only to watch, mouth agape, at the sight of that small, scrappy boy with far too much hair, deck his bald, tattooed assailant directly in the face. In hindsight, he wonders if he could’ve saved himself a lot of heartbreak by flagging the recklessness right there and then. It was _so_ fucking obvious, wasn’t it?

Sometimes, when he imagines this moment in his head, over and over again, a torturous loop, he _won’t_ take Killian’s hand when it’s offered. He’ll pick himself up instead, wipe the blood off his lip, give a grunt of “Thanks,” maybe a manly nod, and walk the hell out of there. It’s what he _should’ve_ done. But the reality was, he _did_ take his hand, and he _did_ hold it for a little too long, and he _did_ offer to buy him another drink.

_“Since you spilled yours,” he said laughing, trying to ignore the adrenaline rushing through his veins—the jagged edges of fear winking at the corners of his vision._

David’s apartment is too empty, and his memory is too sharp.

…

Killian winds up living there completely by accident, and really, if anything is to blame, it is David’s heart (that he has made plans to remove as soon as possible). After that night at the bar, he starts seeing him everywhere—on campus, at the coffee shop, in the library. It’s likely that David had seen Killian everyday before that night, only he had never known it. It is hard to temper the fury that he feels at the possibility. That perhaps there were days, weeks, or even _months_ of time in the precursor to this… whatever the hell this is. This feeling that exists between life and death that no one had thought to give a proper name to. _Grief_ , is what they might say, but it is certainly not that. It is, undoubtedly, too small a word for what this is.

“Oh, I know who you’re talking about,” Ruby interrupted in the midst of his recollection of the night before, “he’s slept on Belle’s couch a few times.”

It’s how he discovers that Killian isn’t really living anywhere, and how he finds himself staring at the empty room in his apartment full of boxes he still hasn’t unpacked. Ultimately, he considers the fact that he isn’t making an awful lot of money anyway, and having a roommate might be helpful. It’s a practical decision, really.

“I’m not interested in your _pity_ ,” Killian hisses back at him, his eyes suddenly cold and cruel, when only moments ago they had been warm and inviting. It would have been easy to strike back in the moment, to say something like, “To hell with it,” and leave him behind, but there had been his heart again—beating painfully in his chest, making it hard to do little else but consider the vicious, lonely thing in front of him, and want to find out why it is so tender.

“You can think whatever you want, Killian,” he replies calmly, his hands curled tightly in his pockets, “but I just thought I’d ask. Honestly, I could use some help with the expenses.”

He leaves him then, quiet and seething, his face still red from his earlier outburst. In hindsight, everything seems far more dramatic than it probably was. In reality, Killian had probably stared at his back for a few moments and turned the other way, off to brood or drink or whatever he did on weekday afternoons. In his imagination, in the relentless replaying of his memories, Killian glares so hard at his back that a target appears, and it remains there; day after day, month after month, until finally, the bullet hits.

…

David wishes that Killian had been a messier roommate. Maybe then there would be something left, instead of it feeling like he had never been there at all. _Is that all you were?_ _A phantom from the very start?_ To be fair, he _had_ left some things behind; clothes folded neatly in drawers, a pair of shoes tucked under his bed. But all those things feel a little bit too much like performative gestures, as if they’ve been curated to create an _impression_ of Killian Jones: The Living Man. He becomes somewhat enamored with the sight of his sweater thrown over the back of a chair. It was a rare sight—Killian had almost _never_ left a piece of clothing draped haphazardly _anywhere_ , let alone in a shared living space where anyone could be inconvenienced by it.

It’s quite possible that he’ll never move it.

…

A surprisingly clean roommate with an unsurprisingly heavy weight resting on his shoulders. Making him sluggish and irritable; his brow furrowed, his eyes dark, and his flask full. David Nolan is not a man without flaws, he _has_ made mistakes (regardless of what Killian might think), and while he can sympathize, he’s not certain he has the emotional fortitude to carry it in the same way that Killian does. It’s not something that David can force him to change. The only person that can alleviate that sense of guilt and regret is Killian himself, but he does _despise it_. The knowledge of this vibrant, brilliant person hidden away beneath all that blackened rot.

“Your guilt accomplishes nothing,” he tries to remind him, knowing full well he may as well be talking to a brick wall, “it’s time to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

Oh, how he _longs_ for that guilt now— _craves it_. Inhales and exhales, searching desperately for a whiff of it. Perhaps he’s left it behind for David to find, a fine accompaniment to the note that he’s left pinned to the front of David’s bedroom door. Nailed to the wood like a butterfly mounted on a cushion.

In the interim between David’s meddling and Killian’s cursed _fucking_ note, the world changes a little bit more. It gets a little bit darker, a little less easy to ignore. The frog’s been long dead and at this point you’d barely even know that it had been a frog at all. The time for fundraisers and peaceful marches has passed, and that bullet that had been headed for David’s back? It leaves the barrel of the gun.

…

David is awoken late one night by the sound of police sirens and the apartment door slamming shut. He leaps out of bed, sliding into the hallway on sock-covered feet to find Killian, dressed head-to-toe in black, a bloody bandage wrapped around his hand.

“Killian?” he mutters, still half-asleep. “What the hell is going on?”

“Nothing to concern yourself with,” moving past him towards the bathroom, pulling out the cork of his flask with his teeth, “back to bed with you.”

He sees it on the news the next day, something about a government building being vandalized, a molotov cocktail thrown through the window. Killian is all smiles, however, he even has the gall to whistle as he walks by him and into the kitchen, presumably intent on making a cup of tea. As if someone just “makes a cup of tea,” after something like that.

“This gonna become a habit?” David shouts at him from the couch, his eyes glued to the screen.

“Haven’t the faintest idea what you mean, love,” he answers over the shrieking sound of the kettle. Dave has to admit, he _does_ smile.

Those few months before things had started to get a little too scary for David’s liking, they were admittedly, quite lively. They had been some of the country’s darker days, but Killian had managed to make them brighter. To infuse humor and strength when everyone else had felt weak and hopeless. His antics seemed to range from fairly harmless, like drawing male genitalia all over the president’s face on public murals; to dangerous but effective, such as breaking into party headquarters and stealing classified documents. He had even managed to leak most of them to the few honorable media outlets left, and he had invited a few of their friends over to watch the truth unfold before their very eyes.

Sometimes he would arrive home looking particularly vibrant, his cheeks pink and his smile wide. He would force David to share a drink with him, no matter how late, and he would tell him of all his adventures. And then there were other nights—maybe it hadn’t gone so well, maybe he was just tired from having to keep doing this; perhaps feeling overwhelmed with the weight of what had to be done to fix the mess these human beings had made. On those nights, David might not hear him come in at all. Shutting the door as quietly as possible behind him, treading lightly towards his bedroom. And in the morning, David wouldn’t ask about his night. He would just smile, make him some tea, and ask about what he had planned next.

Like so much else these days, hindsight would like to remind him that he was falling in love. But unfortunately for him, it often arrives far too late.

…

How do you describe the morning after in a world where he no longer exists? Answer: you don’t. It is a bleak, indescribable space where time ceases to function, where all that makes the world _alive_ is sucked into a vacuum somewhere, and you—this thing that was left behind to ponder this great lack, you sit in silence and wonder at the absolute nothingness that sits before you.

The television is no longer on but he can still see it; the sight of Killian’s hand, his wrist his—he feels himself choking on his own throat at the thought of it, the sight of all that _blood_ , out in the open where anyone could see it. Forces himself to stand, to take a step, to walk towards his bedroom door and maybe sleep, he cannot remember the last time he slept… and that’s when he sees it. The butterfly on his door, a wrinkled piece of paper torn from one of Killian’s notebooks, and on it a carefully written message:

_Dave,_

_I know I made a lot of mistakes._

_But loving you wasn’t one of them._

_\-- K._

His first instinct is to crumple it up in his fist, toss it into the trash. But he leaves it there, hanging on his door. Forces himself to read it every time he goes to bed, anytime he needs to change his clothes. He knows it’s probably not healthy, but it’s not as if he’s had any company over lately to berate him for it, so he leaves it where it is. To mock him, to comfort him, he is not sure which.

The night before he had lost him, presumably the night he had written the note hanging on David’s door, they had gotten into a fight. David remembers it feeling unusual, as they hadn’t gotten into a fight in quite a while, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what it was they were _actually_ fighting about. Was it Killian’s recklessness? His desire to be a hero, to atone for the mistakes he had made in his past? Or was it something else? Perhaps this unspoken, unrealized thing that had been sitting between the two of them for weeks—months, if he was being honest with himself.

 _“I thought that_ **_this_ ** _was what you wanted,” Killian had shouted tiredly, his voice gruff with overuse, “for me to be the bloody hero.”_

 _“I_ **_never_ ** _asked you to do that,” standing from the kitchen chair, pacing back and forth across the living room floor. “All I wanted was for you to_ **_forgive_ ** _yourself. Don’t put this on me.”_

 _“Oh, can’t I?” The bitter edge to his voice catching David by surprise, “I can’t fathom how you would expect otherwise, given how infallible_ **_you_ ** _seem to be.”_

_It’s obvious that he regrets the words almost as soon as they fall from his lips, but thick headed man that he is, a retraction doesn’t seem likely. It is a moment not unlike that afternoon on campus, when David had offered him a place to say. A moment in which David had two possible decisions, one of which would push him away, the other of which would pull him in. He paused, thoughtfully, tried to ignore the sight of Killian’s tongue sneaking out to wet his lips._

_“I’m just worried,” he finally says, quietly, dropping heavily to the couch, “all those other times, you got lucky. Someday soon, you might not be.”_

_Thankfully, Killian is quiet, and the tension he had been carrying in his shoulders seems to deflate as he takes a seat at his side. He is warm, smelling of cigarettes and burnt rubber. His hand hovers over David’s knee, and in a moment that seems to stretch on forever, finally ends with the weight of it on his bones, the heat of it burning through his jeans._

_“It’s not your fault,” Killian whispers, his thumb moving methodically back and forth. In David’s recollection of this moment, Killian’s words sound like an omen—they echo within the walls of their apartment, they fall out the window and into the street, traveling into a future where the two of them can no longer exist together. “I want you to know it’s not your fault,” he says again, “but you have—_ **_somehow_** _, you have made me want to be a better man.”_

 _It is_ **_such_ ** _an idea, isn’t it? A hell of a thing, to hear that you have altered another man’s life so drastically by just being_ **_you_** _. And a part of him wants to run away, to brush aside this moment like all the others, but something inside of him had urged him to stay, and he will be glad of it._

 _“You can be a better man and_ **_stay alive_** _, Killian. I mean, look at me, I’m incredibly alive.”_

_“Aye,” he answers after a thoughtful pause, his eyes straying towards David’s lips. “That you are.”_

_In the movies, they might have shared a kiss in this moment. Perhaps the screen would fade to black, the music would swell. But it wasn’t to be, like so many other moments, lost to yet another great “Perhaps.” Instead he had only sighed, patted David on the knee, and looked resignedly back towards the floor. “I appreciate your concern, Dave, but I have to do this, you know that I do.”_

_“Yeah,” trying to figure out why his throat suddenly felt so tight, his face so hot. “I know you do.”_

…

One morning, and he is unsure as to how long it has been since, he wakes up and finds himself entirely too conscious of the sun on his face. To his great surprise, he had forgotten what it felt like—the warmth of it, the nurturing, wrapped-in-a-blanket feel of it on your skin. He taps the note on the way out the door. Makes a cup of coffee in the kitchen; watches Killian’s sweater as if it will suddenly start folding itself. He watches the news, like so many other mornings before, and he finds something else—anger, hope, a feeling that he can recall from inside the walls of a hot, crowded bar.

On the news, the world seems to be full of people. The last few days, he had been starting to wonder if he were the last. But no, it is still a crowded, wonderful, _horrible_ place, and on this particular morning, when he could feel the sun on his face, he decided that it was still worth fighting for.


End file.
